About 1815 Moses Stout, with his wife and son, David, settled in Dayton, and in 1817 David went into the saddlery business on Main Street, north of Second. A few years later he opened a dry-goods store on Main Street, between Second and Third. He then erected a building on the ground where Engle, Kramer & Company have their hardware store, and opened the first stove store in Dayton. Mr. Stout was a strong Baptist; and assisted in organizing the First Baptist Church. He was a member of the Town Council, was town and city treasurer for over twenty years, and also treasurer of the School Board. He was a stock-holder of the Woodland Cemetery Association, his oldest son, Elias R., succeeding him as a voter. David Stout was one of the originators of Crutchett's Gas Light Company, of which he was treasurer, and afterwards was one of the principal promoters of the Dayton Gas Light and Coke Company, of which he was also treasurer for many years. He mortgaged his private property for the use of the company at one time when it was greatly in need of money. Mr. Stout was also active in organizing the Cooper Cotton-mill and the carpet factory. Where the Atlas Hotel now stands Mr. Stout built one of the early brick houses in Dayton, then in Cabintown, which he occupied as his home until 1839. This house remained unaltered until 1892. In 1839 he moved to a new home on the corner of Second and Perry streets, where in 1840 he entertained as his guests one hundred and eight visitors to the great Harrison Convention. Mr. Stout died April 13, 1858. He had eight children, three of whom are living and residents of Dayton —Elias E., Atlas L., and David Orion.
Moses Simpson, born in New Jersey September 5, 1793, emigrated to Dayton, and in 1814 married Eliza Baker, daughter of Aaron and Hannah Maxwell Baker. They had four children: Elizabeth (Mrs. Robert Alien); Jane Maria (Mrs. George Morris); Electra Emeline, who married Seth Crowell and had six children, three of whom—Moses, Silas, and Anna F., wife of William Marietta—are still living; and Silas M. B. Simpson, who was born October 27, 1826, on the northeast corner of First and St. Clair streets, and died there April 27, 1887, having lived all his life on the one lot. On October 27, 1853, he married Henrietta Sophia Dover, daughter of Samuel B. Dover. They had three children. Mrs. Simpson and one son, William A. Simpson, live in this city.
In 1814 Robert Strain erected a two-story brick building on the northeast comer of Fourth and Main streets, and in 1815 opened the "Traveler's Inn." After his death, his two daughters, Mary and Martha, sold the property to the United Brethren Publishing House, and moved to a home on West Third Street, where they died when very old. Many thought Mary had passed her hundredth birth-day, but she retained her faculties and eyesight to the last.
The sisters were for many years members of the First Presbyterian Church, and Mary, at her death, in 1871, left her property to the church to be used towards a parsonage.
Daniel Stutsman, born in 1790, came to Dayton in 1814, from Hagerstown, Maryland, and married Margaret, daughter of Peter and Katharine Ella Lehman. Mr. Stutsman was a whitesmith, or sickle-maker, and a man of benevolent disposition, and when the cholera broke out in 1832-33 devoted his entire time and energy to nursing the sick. Among those he nursed and prepared for burial was my brother, Robert Andrew Edgar. Mr. Stutsman was the last one stricken with the cholera, on September 5, 1833, and died a most happy Christian death the next day. His last words were, "This is the happiest day of my life, for I shall see my Savior." He was one of the founders of the first Methodist church of this city. He left a wife and six children.
John Grove Stutsman was in his sixteenth year when his father died, and at once determined to be the protector of the family. He was highly esteemed as a man of more than ordinary ability, and was ever interested in all public affairs of the day. He was elected one of the first members of the Board of Education, and served a number of terms.
He was also a member of Council, was instrumental in having the levee built, and superintended the planting of trees along the levees, in the public-school yards, and in the park, the latter at his own expense, soon after it was deeded to the city. He learned the gunsmith trade with William H. Brown, and was the first in Dayton to do gas-fitting. He advocated the stone-arch bridges across the canal, and super-intended the building of the first one. He died in 1869.
Jonathan Stutsman, born in 1786, came to Dayton with his brother Daniel in 1814, and married Katharine, daughter of Peter and Katharine Ella Lehman/ Soon after his. arrival, he established himself as a coppersmith on the : present site of the Phillips House. "For his two days' tax on the road he cut logs to fill in the pond at the corner of Main and Third streets. His oldest daughter, Mrs. Susan Eaton, is still living, in her eightieth year.
Robert McReynolds was born in east Virginia on February 7, 1772, and in 1815 came to this county. He first purchased land of Robinson, who was building a flour-mill at Harries' Station, then Snapptown, and hauled one hundred perch of stone as part payment for the land. He died on the farm in 1843. His son Joseph, born in Louden County, Virginia, in 1797, married Barbara Butt in 1819. They lived on the Gillespie farm and then moved to the Leatherman place, where Joseph started probably the first dairy in Dayton. He afterwards bought a tract of land on Lodwick Alley, now Fifth Street, and continued the dairy business. His son John has lately written me: "When he [the father] lived on the Leatherman place, I was born, August 18, 1822. The old log cabin is still standing. It must be near eighty years old, and is in a good state of preservation. My father used to haul grain to Cincinnati, with an ox team and on the return trip would bring various articles of groceries. He also worked on the Miami and Erie Canal when it was built through Dayton." In speaking of his grandfather, Henry Butt, Mr. McReynolds writes:
"He often told me that he assisted in clearing Main Street from the Court-house north to the river. In front of the old Court-house there was a large pond of water. They filled it by cutting down trees and hauling and rolling them in, then carrying the brush and placing it on the logs, then hauled ground and by that means made the road." A few years since, when a trench was dug in Third Street, I think for the sewer, the old logs, of black walnut, were found as sound as ever. I brought a piece of the wood home, thinking to make a souvenir, but it was so hard I could not work it.”
Thomas Morrison, a carpenter, came here at an early day, married, and had several children. He was a prominent contractor and builder and an energetic business man. In 1834, having no job on hand, he concluded to seek a market elsewhere. He made up an assortment of doors and window-sash, built a flatboat, added to his cargo flour and whisky, and started down the river. For his crew he took Gorton Arnold, Thomas G. Carpenter, David Davis, and Henry Diehl, his apprentices. Henry Diehl only went to the mouth of the Miami River. On reaching the mouth of the Forkadeen River, the party went up to Jackson, Tennessee; but the venture was not a success. They were thirty-one days poling the boat from the Mississippi to Jackson. After a ten months' trip, when returning home on foot, tired out, they stopped at a farmhouse to ask for a night's rest, but were refused. As they turned from the door, Mr. Morrison picked up an ax, and, passing a pond near by, where the frogs were merrily singing, threw the ax into the pond. On reaching home, he wrote the man, telling him where to find the ax, and giving some advice on hospitality. Although their trip had not been successful, what Spanish milled silver they had, divided as usual into halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths, * became very burdensome, and they exchanged it for shin-plasters of the Vincennes Bank, of Indiana, which, on reaching home, they found to be worthless. Mr. Arnold, however, preserved some of them, and I am indebted to James 0. Arnold for the piece from which the accompanying cut is made. With the exception of David Davis, all the party were living to enjoy the fifty-sixth anniversary dinner, hale and hearty old men. David H. Morrison, son of Thomas and Sarah Morrison, was born December 19, 1817, on the lot where the homestead, now occupied by the Garfield Club, stands. On November 11, 1840, he married Harriet J. Skinner, daughter of Robert J. and Mary M. Skinner, of Wapakoneta, Ohio.
At the suggestion of his teacher, the late E. E. Barney, he became a civil engineer, and took his first lessons on the construction of the Miami and Erie Canal in 1836 and 1837. Among his early associates in the survey were E. J. Barney, Jeremiah Peirce, Alexander Conover, Beck Schenck, and William Bomberger. He was for some time the city engineer, in which office he gave the highest satisfaction, being noted as an exact man, of strict, integrity and the very highest sense of honor. He was looked upon as one of the best designing and constructive engineers in the State, and was frequently consulted on knotty points by engineers, both in Dayton and elsewhere, all of whom spoke in the highest terms of his remarkable abilities in his profession. Mr. Morrison, in 1851, built the first iron bridge west of the Alleghany Mountains. He died July 21, 1882.
Thomas G. Carpenter was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, May 27, 1803, came here in 1815, and learned his trade of house carpenter with Thomas Morrison. In 1828 Mr. Carpenter married Hannah Heitman. They had seven children, one of whom, Mary Jane, married Joseph Clemens, who was wounded in the late war, and died at the Soldiers' Home. Henrietta Peirce married Colonel W. H. Martin, Eliza married Walter Hantchett, Hettie married Elam Wike, and Samuel married Laura Shartle. Mr. Carpenter was paralyzed and confined to the house for many years before his death.
Silas Broadwell, who was married in Morristown, New Jersey, to Sarah Byram, came to Dayton in 1816. He had an old red warehouse at the head of Wilkinson Street for storing produce until the river was high enough to float the boats to the Ohio. This warehouse was carried away by one of the floods. Mr. Broadwell owned considerable land west of Perry Street and north of Second, and probably lived near the corner of Bridge Street and Franklin Avenue. He had a large family of children, of whom all are dead except one daughter, Anna, who married George Josselyn, and is now living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Ephraim Broadwell married Jane Ross Gardner, and came to Dayton at an early date. He was town marshal, I believe, in 1832 and 1833. In the winter of 1832 there was a great deal of snow, and several of the boys got jumpers, cow-bells, and boat horns, and went out for a sleigh-ride. Mr. Broadwell as marshal started out to stop the noise. They would quiet down when he would be near them, and then when nearly out of sight begin again, keeping the poor old man on the chase a good part of the night. In 1833 his son, William, bought out Henry Herman's dry-goods store on Second Street.
David Heck moved here on September 29, 1818, and settled in Jefferson Township. He was the father of six children, of whom David L. (eighty years old), Elizabeth, Susan (Mrs. Wallace), and Polly still survive.
Henry Stoddard, born in Woodbury, Connecticut, March 18, 1788, received a common-school education, and at the age of sixteen commenced earning his living as a clerk.
He then read law, was admitted to the bar in 1812, and in 1816, in company with George B. Holt, started west on horseback. Dayton then was a place of about six hundred. The successful lawyer had to ride the circuit through an unbroken wilderness, and for many years Mr. Stoddard made the circuit on horseback, through mud and rain, at night often sleeping in the woods. He was one of the most successful lawyers in Dayton, and in 1833 was appointed * the attorney of the Dayton Manufacturing Company, at a salary of fifty dollars a year. For four years prior to 1844 Mr. Stoddard was in partnership with Judge Haynes, and in 1844 retired from active practice of law. Mr. Stoddard was an active member of the First Presbyterian Church, and from 1846 until his death a ruling elder. He was twice married; first to Harriet L. Patterson, who died October 1, 1822, leaving one son, Asa Patterson Stoddard, now living in St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Stoddard's second wife was Susan Williams, daughter of John H. Williams, one of Dayton's pioneers. Mrs. Stoddard was a woman of great beauty and brilliant intellect, and was noted in Dayton for her charity. During the last cholera epidemic, she not only gave freely of her means for nurses and delicacies for the poor, but, when nurses could not be procured, she would often take that place herself. Mrs. Stoddard died April 4, 1861. Mr. Stoddard died November 1, 1869, having been an invalid for some time before his death. They had four children—Henry, Eliza (Mrs. Colonel S. B. Smith), John W., and Fowler, of whom three are living.
George B. Holt, who came west with Henry Stoddard, was born in Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut. When very young he entered the law school of Judges Reeve and Gould in Litchfield, and in 1812, when but twenty-two, was admitted to the bar. Mr. Holt decided to seek a home in Ohio, the far West, and arrived in the little village of Dayton in 1819. The next year he commenced the practice of law, and in 1821 married Mary, the second daughter of Dr. William Blodget. The lawyers on the circuit, after forcing their horses to swim the streams, often swollen by spring freshets, would have to ride miles through the woods before coming to a "house of entertainment," or the hospitable log cabin, for rest and refreshment. Elected to the Legislature in 1824, Mr. Holt participated in the discussion of many important laws, among them the ad valorem system of taxation and the canal bill, and was a member of the committee on bill for the common-school system. In 1828 he was elected to the Senate. During the last session of the Legislature of which he was a member he was made president judge of the Circuit Court, and in 1842-43 was reelected to the same office. He also served as prosecuting attorney, and devoted part of his time to agriculture and stock raising. He was president of the Board of Health during the cholera epidemic. Elected to the constitutional convention, he was chairman of the committee on jurisprudence and was active in forming the constitution of the State. Although a Congregationalist, he was a member of the Presbyterian Church in Dayton. Judge Holt was president of the Montgomery Pioneer Association from its formation until his death on the evening of October 30, 1871, in his eighty-second year. He had three daughters—Eliza, Martha, and Mrs. Belle H. Burrowes.
Dr. William Blodget, of English and French extraction, one of his ancestors being a descendant of a French Protestant refugee, was born at Stafford, Connecticut, March 26, 1776. After his marriage he emigrated to Dayton, where he established himself in the practice of medicine with good success. He died October 26, 1838, at the home pf his son-in-law, Judge Holt, his wife having preceded him, and was buried in the old graveyard on Fifth Street.
Dr. Job Haines, born in New Jersey October 28, 1791, graduated at Princeton, studied medicine at Morristown and Philadelphia, and in January, 1817, came to Dayton, bringing with him in his saddle-bags the first water-cress ever grown here. Dr. Haines "informs his friends and the public that he is ready at all times to attend to the business of his profession." He was the first secretary, and at one time one of the trustees, of the Montgomery and Clark County Medical Society, organized in Dayton at Reid’s Inn on May 25, 1824, and was appointed one of the first fire-wardens in 1827. Dr. Haines was Mayor of the town in 1833, and, owing to the cholera that year, from which there were thirty-three deaths between June and September, appointed July 23 as a fast day. The population at that time was about four thousand. Dr. Haines was a devoted member of the First Presbyterian Church, k and often, when without a pastor, he would read a sermon to the congregation. He died on July 23, 1860, being universally mourned.
Samuel Forrer was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, January 6, 1793, of Swiss descent, and in 1817 or 1818 came to Dayton, which continued his home until his death, March 25, 1874. In 1818 he was appointed deputy surveyor of Hamilton County, also deputy surveyor under Colonel Richard C. Anderson, and in 1818 and 1819 surveyed the military lands north of Greenville. In 1820 be examined the summit between the Scioto and Sandusky rivers, at the expense of William Steele, of Cincinnati, to ascertain the feasibility of uniting Lake Erie and the Ohio River by a navigable canal. From 1822 to 1825, in the employ of the State, he made surveys for the canal, and, after work was begun, was resident engineer on the Miami and Erie Canal, and continued in the service of the State until 1831. In 1832 Mr. Forrer was appointed a member of the Board of Canal Commissioners, and when it was abolished and a Board of Public Works created, was made a member Of that board. In 1838 he was appointed consulting engineer of Indiana, together with Sylvester Welch, chief engineer of Kentucky, and in 1849 was engaged in locating the Ohio Central Railroad from Zanesville to Wheeling, and in the surveys of many of the railroads and turnpikes leading from Dayton. He was a contractor on the Wabash Canal in Indiana, on the Pacific Railroad in Missouri, and was consulted by engineers and capitalists from all over Ohio and adjoining States. Our Woodland Cemetery owes much of its beauty to his skill in locating driveways, he having been employed by Mr. Van Cleve to lay it out. On February 8, 1826, Samuel Forrer married Sarah Hastings Howard. Mrs. Forrer was born in Belmont County, near St. Clairsville, December 27, 1807, and died in Dayton, December 11, 1887. They had six children: Elizabeth H. Forrer, who married the late Jeremiah H. Peirce, and died January 16, 1874; Edward Forrer, who died December 28, 1838; Augusta Forrer, who married the late Luther B. Bruen; Ann Forrer, who died January 11,1837; Mary Forrer, who married the late Jeremiah H. Peirce October 5, 1882; Howard Forrer, who was born November 11, 1841, and killed at Decatur, Georgia, July 22, 1864, while performing his duties as adjutant of the Sixty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Mr. Forrer had three brothers and four sisters. One brother, Christian Forrer, kept the Montgomery House in Dayton for some years.
James H. Mitchell came to Dayton, after graduating at Yale, in 1820, to take charge of the academy, and married Miss Skinner of Lebanon. As surveyor he assisted in laying out new plats for the Cooper estate and others, and in laying out Woodland Cemetery, and was one of the surveyors of the Miami and Erie Canal.
John Bimm, a native of Hesse-Cassel, on the Rhine, Germany, came to this country when but nineteen years old. He married Christina Dansenbaker, who was born near Deerfield, New Jersey, and in 1818 came to Dayton. Mr. Cooper offered him the lot on which the county jail now stands for five days' work, but as it was then a pond, Mr. Bimm thought that too much to pay for it. Mr. Bimm lived for a while on the farm of Robert Edgar, on the Shakertown road, and afterwards on the farm of H. G. Phillips. While living there he bought about thirty acres of land of Dr. John Steele, on the Valley Pike, where he erected a two-story frame house, in which he died in 1847. Mrs. Bimm died in 1845. They had ten children, of whom only three—Elizabeth, Isaac, and Ezra—are still living.
Robert J. Skinner came to Dayton in 1816, and at once made preparations to publish the Ohio Watchman by purchasing the "good will" and materials of the Republican.
The first number was issued on November- 27, with the motto "Truth, equality, and literary knowledge, the three great pillars of republican liberty." On April 5, 1818, Mr. Skinner enlarged his paper and changed the motto to "A free press is the palladium of liberty." On November 7, 1818, he married Mary Hollis, of Philadelphia, their bridal trip to Dayton, on horseback, taking six weeks. When Market Street was opened, Mr. Skinner gave to the town the ground for the street and one-half of the Main Street front on which the market-house now stands. He also built a large three-story building on Market Street, known for many years as "Skinner's New Building." Thomas Buchanan Read, artist and poet, took the lady's part in a play given in the large hall of this building by the Thespian Society.
In December, 1820, Mr. Skinner took into partnership George S. Houston, and the name of the paper was changed to the Dayton Watchman and Farmers' and Mechanics' Journal. On August 6, 1822, Mr. Skinner sold his interest in the paper to A. T. Hays, and it was published by George S. Houston & Company. On January 15, 1826, Mr. Houston sold his interest to A. T. Hays and Ephraim Lindslay, but they only published the paper until November 21 of the same year, when it was discontinued.
In 1830 Mr. Skinner was appointed by General Jackson receiver of the United States land office at Piqua. He, in company with Joseph Barnett, Peter Aughenbaugh, and a Mr. Wiles, had purchased the land and laid out the town of Wapakoneta, and the land office being removed to that place he, as receiver, removed his family there, and continued to serve as receiver until the office was moved to Lima. During this period the celebrated specie circular was issued and many two-horse wagon loads of gold and silver coin were hauled to "the settlements," Dayton and Cincinnati. On. January 27, 1816, a meeting was held at Grimes's Tavern to make an effort to erect a bridge across Mad River at the Staunton road, then the most important road north, but for want of money the project fell through. The next year the county commissioners built a bridge at a cost of $1,400, a single arch span. Previous to this all the rivers had to be forded or crossed by ferries. Dr. Welsh established a ferry at the west end of First Street, for the purpose of going to his farm, now Dayton View, and to Rench's Mills at Salem. William King established one at the west end of Fourth Street, for the purpose of going to his farm, now Miami City, and to the Gunckel Mills at Germantown. These ferries were large flat-bottomed boats, on which a two-horse team could drive, and were poled across the river by two men.
In 1818 a company was incorporated by Robert Patterson, Joseph Peirce, David Reid, H. G. Phillips, James Steele, George S. Houston. William George, and William King, and on April 18 the contract for a toll bridge to cross the Miami at Bridge Street was given to Nathan S. Hunt, of Hamilton. In January, 1819, the bridge was opened to the public, and in 1852 it was washed away by high water. The toll-house stood at the northwest end of the bridge, and the rates of toll, taken from receipts given at the time, were as follows: "Loaded wagon and team, two horses, 12 cents; empty wagon and team, two horses, 6¼ cents; two-wheeled carriage, 6¼ cents; man and horse, 3 cents; person on foot, 2 cents."
In 1835 the county commissioners appropriated six hundred dollars to build a covered wooden bridge over the Miami at Main Street, the balance to be raised by subscription. In 1836 the bridge was opened for travel, and in the flood of 1867 was washed away by high water.
The Third Street Bridge Company was incorporated in 1838 by Jacob D. Lowe, Peter Aughenbaugh, H. Van Tuyl, Jacob Wonderlich, and Valentine Winters. The bridge was commenced the same year, and completed in 1839, by Peter Stoneberger. The original covered bridge, at one time a toll bridge, is still standing.
In May, 1818, the first stage line was started between Dayton and Cincinnati by Mr. Lyon, who made weekly trips during the summer. On June 2 John H. Piatt, of Cincinnati, and D. 0. Cooper, of Dayton, started a line, and announced in the Watchman that the stage left Cincinnati every Tuesday at 5 o'clock A.M., and arrived at Dayton Wednesday evening. It would leave Dayton on Friday at 5 A.M. and reach Cincinnati on Saturday evening. The fare was eight cents a mile, and fourteen pounds of baggage were allowed each passenger. One hundred pounds were equal to one passenger.
In 1820 two colored men, John Crowder and Jacob Musgrove, started a stage with four horses, carrying twelve passengers.
In 1822 Messrs. Worden & Huffman had a line to Columbus, and Timothy Squier one between Dayton and Cincinnati, which he continued in 1825 to Columbus. In May, 1827, the Cincinnati,. Dayton, Columbus & Portland Company, of which H. G. Phillips and Timothy Squier were the Dayton proprietors, began running triweekly stages from Cincinnati through Dayton to Columbus, making the trip in four days. The fare from Cincinnati to Dayton was three dollars, and to Columbus six dollars.
On August 11, 1828, the following announcement was made:
"The public are informed that during the watering season the daily line of mail coaches from Cincinnati by way of Hamilton and Dayton to Springfield will pass by the Yellow Springs. Traveling ladies and gentlemen wishing to visit the Springs shall be sure of a seat, as the subscribers keep a hack in readiness should the coach be full.
"T. SQUIER & Co."
The first show to visit Dayton was in 1819—an African lion, exhibited at Reid’s Inn. The next year the first elephant ever seen here was exhibited in the log barn of the same inn, and on September 22 and 23, 1823, there was a "Grand Exhibition of Living Animals," with "good music on the -ancient Jewish cymbal, and other instruments." On April 26, 1824, a "large and learned elephant" was advertised at Reid’s Inn for two days. In July, 1825, the first circus visited Dayton.
In 1820-21 Elisha Brabham, a millwright, assisted in building the old red mill on the corner of Water and Mill streets, on the foundation of the mill that burned June 20, 1820. He was the first miller, assisted by Alexander Swaynie, and afterwards by Henry Franz. For many years the farmer would take his wheat or corn to the mill to be ground, the toll, a certain measure full, being taken out of the hopper before the grist was ground, as payment for the grinding. It was said that the miller would make a mistake sometimes and toll twice. Subsequently millers exchanged flour by the pound for wheat by the bushel, and finally they commenced paying cash for wheat. Elisha Brabham was the first man in Dayton to deal in wheat.
In 1822 the sheriff received a salary of $50 per annum, the clerk $50, and the auditor $150, in addition to certain fees to which they were entitled. At this time the money used was Spanish silver, and to make change a dollar would be divided into four quarters, and the quarters into four pieces, worth six and a quarter cents each. This was called "cut money." In 1830, when the dimes and half dimes first reached here, it was quite the fashion to have a set of vest buttons made of the half dimes.
In 1820 Henry Stoddard, as the representative from this county, was asked by the master mechanics of Day-ton to petition the House to pass a bill giving them a first lien on buildings they erected until their wages should be paid, and the bill which he succeeded in having passed is still in force.
Farmers generally made their own summer hats out of rye straw. They would first soften the straw by soaking it, then on rainy days and in the evenings plait it, and sew the plaits into shape. Sometimes they would take a straight buckeye limb, four to six inches in diameter fifteen to eighteen inches long; and plane off fine shavings. They would then drive five or six pins through a board about an eighth of an inch apart, the points coming about a quarter of an inch above the surface of the board, and the shavings by being drawn over the pins would be divided into the proper width for plaiting. A hat made in this way would wear for a long time.
Lewis Hamblin Brown built the levee from Wilkinson Street south as far as Washington Street, where he was stopped by injunction. Mr. Brown married Maria Ashmore Jones at Hamilton before coming to Dayton. They had four children- Mrs. Susan J. Kiddy of Dayton, Mrs. A E Minnick of St. Louis, Missouri, Lewis H. Brown of St Louis, and Mrs. Sarah M. Clingman, wife of John Clingman, of Dayton. On August 20, 1822, the Watchman announced that a public meeting would be held in the Presbyterian meeting-house on Wednesday at 2 P.M., to form a Bible Society for Montgomery County. The organization was completed September 14, when Dr. Job Haines was elected president. In 1823 the Rev. Thomas Winters of Germantown requested, and obtained, the privilege of starting a branch society in that town.
After the burning of Cooper's Mills, on June 20 1820 the first fire of importance, the Select Council at once provided ladders to be kept hanging in the market-house and ordered every householder to procure two buckets made of harness leather, with leather bales, have his name painted on them, and keep them in a convenient place, and this constituted the entire fire department at that time. In the spring of 1825 Council gave $226 to one of the merchants going east to buy a fire-engine in Philadelphia. It was shipped by sea to New Orleans, up the Mississippi and Ohio to Cincinnati, and then brought by wagon to Dayton, not reaching here until in the fall of 1825. It was a box about four by six feet, twenty inches deep, with a force pump and crank. It had to be filled with buckets, and the water was thrown on the fire through a short piece of hose, by turning the crank. Two lines would be formed from the engine to the pump, one to pass the full buckets, the other to return them empty. Relays of men were at the pump to keep it constantly going. In 1827-28 eighty-eight leather buckets were purchased by Council at a cost of $112.50, one-half of them to be kept on the engine, and the other half at the homes of the men ready for use. For twenty years these buckets were inspected every April by the fire-wardens. The first fire-wardens, appointed by Council in March, 1827, were Dr. Job Haines, Matthew Patton, Alexander Grimes, James Steele, and Abraham Darst, with John W. Van Cleve as chief engineer of the Fire Department. In 1833 a new engine was purchased, the "Safety," with suction hose and gallery, and five hundred feet of new hose. This year cisterns were dug in the street intersections on prominent corners, and a well sunk at the curb, from which the cistern was to be kept filled.
After the purchase of the "Safety," the Safety Fire Engine and Hose Company No. 1 was organized, with James Perrine foreman, Valentine Winters assistant foreman, J. D. Loomis secretary, T. E. Clark treasurer; leader of the hose detachment, Thomas Brown; assistant leader, Henry Diehl; directors, William P. Huffman, Jacob Wilt, Peter Baer, Henry Deichler, and Abraham Overleas. The next engine purchased was the "Independent"; after it the "Oregon". These three, although great improvements over the first, were not satisfactory, and in 1852 four new engines were purchased, the "Neptune," the "Vigilance, the "Deluge"' and the "Pacific." This volunteer fire equipment served Dayton until the paid department was organized in 1863, and the first steam-engine purchased. The burning of the Journal office in July, 1863, was the last large fire at which the volunteer companies officiated
On August 29, 1822, the first number of the Gridiron appeared, with the motto,
“Burn, roast meat, burn; Boil o’er, ye pots; ye spits, forget to turn."
The paper was published weekly, at a cost of one dollar a year by John Anderson, who endeavored by "roasting" people to correct manners and customs which he thought defective; but the paper was not a success, and in eighteen months was discontinued. On November 21 it was announced that the Thespian Society would present the farce, “Of Age To-morrow” on the following Saturday for the benefit of the Dayton Library.
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